Rules: You must display an Adventure Pass from the Cleveland National Forest to park on Laguna Mountain lands. You can buy a $5 day pass or $30 annual pass from the Ranger Station in Alpine, at outdoor recreation stores such as REI or Adventure 16, or at the Mount Laguna store or visitors center. The Indian Creek Trail is open to hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians and dogs on leashes.

Trailhead: From Sunrise Highway, S1, park at the Penny Pines parking area, between mile marker 27 and 27.5, which is about 14 miles north from S1’s junction at I-8.

Distance: I went about 6.3 miles round-trip, from Penny Pines to Noble Canyon Trail to Indian Creek Trail and back; about 800 feet elevation change.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Priscilla Lister

A hike down Indian Creek Trail in the Laguna Mountain area takes you to a year-round creek that is surprising for its lack of surrounding riparian habitat.

No oaks or cottonwoods or willows line this creek bed; rather, the stream flows through an area dominated by low grasses and shrubs, where the sound of frogs flows unimpeded.

It’s still pretty, though, and the hike to get there winds through some old Jeffrey pine forests that have escaped the wildfires that decimated them almost entirely in nearby Cuyamaca.

To reach the Indian Creek Trail, you must start on either the Noble Canyon Trail or the Pine Mountain Trail. The Pine Mountain Trail is about a 1.5-mile hike to its junction with the Indian Creek Trail near Champagne Pass Viewpoint, Indian Creek Trail’s halfway mark. Hike the Noble Canyon Trail for about 2 miles to reach its intersection with the Indian Creek Trail.

I took Noble Canyon Trail, which offers a pretty walk through those pines, along with lots of black oaks whose deciduous leaves were not yet budding in mid-March. Several of the black oaks also appeared completely denuded of bark, which may mean they have succumbed to the gold spotted oak borer, an insect pest that has killed an estimated 21,500 oak trees covering 1,893 square miles in San Diego County as of 2010, according to the University of California Cooperative Extension.

A few scattered coast live oaks along the trail appeared in fine health, along with lots of scrub oak, green-limbed ceanothus, chamise and manzanita. When you get closer to Indian Creek, look for the light green, almost gray-blue artemisia, also known as big sagebrush, a very fragrant shrub that was eaten by early pioneers and was used by native people to line the floors of their homes for fragrance, to ward off insects, to make a tonic to fight colds and flus, and to treat stomachaches.

At the top of the Noble Canyon Trail, before you reach Indian Creek Trail, you’ll see a lone home below in the meadows by Filaree Flat. The private property is known as the Lucas Ranch, home of the last Kwaaymii Indian, Thomas Lucas, to be born here. He died in 1989, but his daughter, Carmen, who retired from a career in the Marines, still lives here in the only building left after the 2003 Cedar fire burned others to the ground.

You could choose some longer options with the Indian Creek Trail. From the start at Penny Pines parking area, hike 2 miles of Noble Canyon Trail to Indian Creek Trail, then 2 miles of it to Champagne Pass Viewpoint. Then connect to Pine Mountain Trail for its 1.5-mile length to Pioneer Mail parking area, then connect to the Pacific Crest Trail for about 3.5 miles back to Penny Pines for a total loop hike of about 9 miles. Or you could hike the 2 miles of Noble Canyon to Indian Creek Trail, then hike the entire 4 miles of Indian Creek Trail, which intersects with Deer Park Trail that heads into Cuyamaca Rancho State Park and connects with the Harvey Moore Trail for a total one-way hike of about 10.5 miles, arranging a two-car setup.

The Noble Canyon Trail is one of four National Recreation Trails in San Diego County. It’s a 10-mile trail that begins here and continues southwest to Pine Valley. Portions of this trail were established long ago by miners and ranchers, according to the Laguna Mountain Volunteer Association.

The other National Recreation Trails here are Bayside Trail at Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma, the Inaja Memorial Nature Trail outside Julian, and the Observatory Trail in Palomar.

There are more than 1,000 National Recreation Trails in all 50 states. Unlike National Scenic Trails (there are 11, including the Pacific Coast Trail) or National Historic Trails (there are 19, including the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail), which must be approved by acts of Congress, National Recreation Trails may be designated by the Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Agriculture. Applications are taken every year.

After 2 miles on Noble Canyon Trail, it intersects with the Indian Creek Trail on the right. Indian Creek Trail winds downhill to the creek in about 1 mile, then heads back up through chaparral for another mile to Champagne Pass Viewpoint and its intersection with the Pine Mountain Trail. When I reached Indian Creek, I turned back, since some 6 miles round-trip was enough for me.